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The story of Nelson Mandela’s fight to end apartheid has been told many times, but the team behind BET’s “Madiba” says the miniseries differs in many ways from other biopics on the late South African leader.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — Nelson Mandela is known by many epithets: freedom fighter, anti-apartheid hero, global icon. But two years after his death, a heated debate has emerged in South Africa that questions part of this towering legacy: was Mandela a sellout? To some this might seem a shocking, even taboo sentiment.

JOHANNESBURG — The bogus sign language interpreter at last week’s Nelson Mandela memorial service was among a group of people who accosted two men found with a stolen television and burned them to death by setting fire to tires placed around their necks, one of the interpreter’s cousins and three of his friends told The Associated Press Monday.

QUNU, South Africa — Songs, speeches and the boom of artillery rang across Nelson Mandela’s home village during his funeral Sunday as a tribal chief draped in animal skin declared: “A great tree has fallen.

JOHANNESBURG — An ox is slaughtered, the deceased is wrapped in a lion skin and a family elder keeps talking to the body’s spirit: The state funeral for South Africa’s anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela will also include those rituals from the tradition of the Xhosa people, to whom Mandela’s Thembu clan belongs.

PRETORIA, South Africa — About 100,000 South African mourners waited in line Friday to view the body of Nelson Mandela, which was lying in state for the third and final day, but most were likely to be turned away before officials remove the casket in the late afternoon.

JOHANNESBURG — A man who provided sign language interpretation on stage for Nelson Mandela’s memorial service, attended by scores of heads of state, was a “fake,” the national director of the Deaf Federation of South Africa said on Tuesday.

JOHANNESBURG — Police in South Africa say retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s home was robbed while he was away to attend a memorial honoring Nelson Mandela. A statement Wednesday from the South African Police Service said the robbery of Tutu’s home in Cape Town happened between 7 p.

JOHANNESBURG — U.S. President Barack Obama exhorted the world Tuesday to embrace Nelson Mandela’s universal message of peace and justice, electrifying tens of thousands of rain-lashed spectators and prompting a standing ovation by scores of heads of state in a South African stadium.

JOHANNESBURG — President Barack Obama shook hands with Cuban President Raul Castro Tuesday at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela, a simple gesture that stoked talk of a possible rapprochement between the leaders of two Cold War foes.

Celebrating one of his personal heroes, President Barack Obama praised Nelson Mandela as the last great liberator of the 20th century, urging the world to carry on his legacy by fighting inequality, poverty and discrimination.

GLENDORA >> As Citrus College nears its centennial celebrations next fall, the school has received a display with information about Nelson Mandela and the historic free election of South Africa in 1994.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama headed to South Africa on Monday to attend a national memorial service for anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela. Obama and his wife, Michelle, boarded Air Force One under cold, rainy skies Monday morning for the long flight.

JOHANNESBURG — South Africans of all races flocked to houses of worship Sunday for a national day of prayer and reflection to honor Nelson Mandela as a large contingent of foreign dignitaries, including royalty, begin arriving in the country to pay their final respects to the liberation struggle icon.

JOHANNESBURG — Flags were lowered to half-staff across South Africa and people in black townships, in upscale mostly white suburbs and in the country’s vast rural grasslands commemorated Nelson Mandela with song, tears and prayers on Friday while pledging to adhere to the values of unity and democracy that he embodied.

WASHINGTON — Counting himself among the millions influenced by Nelson Mandela, President Barack Obama on Thursday mourned the death of the anti-apartheid icon with whom he shares the distinction of being his nation’s first black president.

JOHANNESBURG — Nelson Mandela was a master of forgiveness. South Africa’s first black president spent nearly one-third of his life as a prisoner of apartheid, the system of white racist rule that he described as evil, yet he sought to win over its defeated guardians in a relatively peaceful transition of power that inspired the world.

The apartheid government of South Africa threw Nelson Mandela into prison in 1962 after a show trial. He was sent to a prison on Robben Island, along with other members of the African National Congress, where he was expected to languish.

THOUSAND OAKS — Tiger Woods said the death of Nelson Mandela was “a sad day for many people,” especially those who had the chance to meet him. That moment was 15 years ago for Woods when he was in South Africa for the Million Dollar Challenge.

Nelson Mandela visited Los Angeles twice — first as an activist just released from 27 years in a South African prison for his vocal opposition to apartheid, and later to raise money as a political candidate for his country’s first open election.

There’s nothing Hollywood loves more than a hero, and when one is both associated with a righteous cause and the establishment of peace like Nelson Mandela was, the movies couldn’t make up anything better.

Lynn Harris Ballen left South Africa more than 30 years ago, but the country and the struggles of its past still run in her veins. It was while she searched for her biological father, John Harris, that Ballen discovered her own personal link to Nelson Mandela.

World leaders like President Obama, Speaker John Boehner and celebrities like Charlize Theron (a South African native) took to Twitter on Thursday after hearing the news that former South African leader Nelson Mandela had died.

As the news of Mandela’s death swept the world on Dec. 5, 2013, many living in South Africa took to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media to express their respect for Mandela and grieve his death.

“Nelson Mandela fought heroically for freedom and a truly democratic society. His courageous life shows what’s possible when one acts on his convictions.” — Gov. Jerry Brown “The world has lost a true hero for freedom and we should all carry out his vision of equality in our daily lives.

July 18, 1918 — Born to Hendry Mphakanyiswa, a Thembu chief, and Nosekeni Qunu in the Umtata district of the Transkei, at a time when virtually all of Africa was under European colonial rule 1940 — Expelled from University of Fort Hare, a leading institution for blacks, for role in a student strike with Oliver Tambo, a future African National Congress president.

JOHANNESBURG — Ailing former South African President Nelson Mandela is not “doing well” but is continuing to put up a courageous fight from his “deathbed,” members of his family have told the South African Broadcasting Corporation in an interview.

Next year marks the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s election as the first black president of South Africa. The victory signaled a symbolic end of apartheid, a brutal practice of racial segregation enforced by the white minority in the country upon its black citizens, but it was not the end of the struggle that the now 95-year-old Mandela took on throughout his life.